[hana-code-insert name=’social w twitt face’ /]“Twenty years from now you will be more disappointed by the things that you didn’t do than by the ones you did do. So throw off the bowlines. Sail away from the safe harbor. Catch the trade winds in your sails. Explore. Dream. Discover.” Mark Twain
Motivation can be a huge help for you to achieve what you want in life. But how can you find all that motivation you need?
Well, looking at timeless advice from time to time helps me. And in this article I’ll share four of my favorite timeless thoughts on motivation, four thoughts that motivate and inspire me.
Make a conscious choice.
“Be miserable. Or motivate yourself. Whatever has to be done, it’s always your choice.” Wayne Dyer
“I was thinking one day and I realized that if I just had somebody behind me all the way to motivate me I could make a big difference. Nobody came along like that so I just became that person for myself.” Unknown
Help, accountability and motivation from others is always good. But in the end you to be able to rely on yourself. And there is really no escaping it, because as Dyer says, it’s always your choice what to do.
So you have to consciously choose to motivate yourself. You can do that by:
Doing what you really, really like to do. When you really like doing something then the motivation to do it comes automatically (most of the time). And when you really want something then it simply becomes easier to push through any inner resistance you feel. You are so motivated to achieve whatever it is you want that the risks you may encounter may be scary but smaller than your desire.
Make a list of upsides. Write down all the benefits you will get from achieving something, like for example getting into better shape or making more money. Save it and pull that list out of the drawer whenever your motivation is lacking and review it. Or put it somewhere where you will see it every day. This is a powerful way to reconnect with your motivation and reasons for taking action.
Compare yourself with yourself. Comparing what you have and your results to what other people have and have accomplished can really kill your motivation. There are always people ahead of you. Most likely quite a bit of people. And a few of them are miles ahead.
So focus on you. On your results. And how you can and have improved your results. Reviewing your results is important so you see where you have gone wrong in the past to avoid similar missteps further on. But it’s also important because it’s a great motivator to see how much you have improved and how far you have come. Often you can be pleasantly surprised when you do such a review.
But the most important thing is to take responsibility for your own motivation and feelings and not wait around for someone else to do it. When you do that you will most often find a way to get yourself to start moving towards what you want.
Walk your talk.
“Walking your talk is a great way to motivate yourself. No one likes to live a lie. Be honest with yourself, and you will find the motivation to do what you advise others to do.” Vince Poscente
This is great tip. Whenever you don’t follow your own talk or just your inner rules of how you want to behave you tend to feel bad. Your esteem of yourself sinks and your motivation to get going does too.
So you have to be honest with yourself when you feel like you are out of alignment. You have to get up and get started again. When your talk and inner standards you have set for yourself align with what you do then you your self-esteem goes up.
You feel great because you are living like you deep down want to. And you are getting all these important things done and can enjoy the results. And then you want more of that good stuff, you sometimes feel so motivated that you can’t wait to get going.
This is not always easy. In the short run it’s often easier and less uncomfortable and scary to lie to yourself a bit and hold yourself back. But the rewards for walking your talk are big. Both on the outside and the inside.
Set big goals that really inspire you.
“Goals are not only absolutely necessary to motivate us. They are essential to really keep us alive.” Robert H. Schuller
Without inspiring goals you tend wander around aimlessly in a confused funk.
I think the most important thing about setting goals is to find goals that really inspire and motivate you.
What are your goals? As much as possible, you have to set the goals for yourself. Should and ought to-goals aren’t good enough. Or goals that other people have set for you.
Think about your goals. Think about who has set them. Then think about what you really want in life. Then set your own goals. Write them down.
I also don’t think one should be afraid of setting big goals. Set a big goal that inspires you even if it may seem a tad unrealistic at the moment. If you have too easily achievable goals then you may find that they don’t give you that motivational spark and drive. When you start to think a bit bigger then you get motivated and your mind starts looking for the solutions that will help you achieve that goal. Thinking too small can leave you with a “meh…” feeling or make you feel like you can do it later.
And a benefit of doing things this way – even if you don’t quite achieve your big, big goal or it takes a while longer than you may have hoped for – can be found in a quote from Les Brown:
“Shoot for the moon and if you miss you will still be among the stars.”
Don’t get too hung up on being motivated to get started.
“The whole idea of motivation is a trap. Forget motivation. Just do it. Exercise, lose weight, test your blood sugar, or whatever. Do it without motivation. And then, guess what? After you start doing the thing, that’s when the motivation comes and makes it easy for you to keep on doing it.” John C. Maxwell
Here’s another view on motivation. Maybe you don’t need it to get started? Maybe you can create it along the way?
Many times I have found it better to just do it and start working instead of trying to motivate myself to get going. At first what you do may suck quite a bit and it’s hard going. But after a while inspiration and motivation seems to catch up with you. Things start to flow easier and your work is of a higher quality.
And after you have kept going for a while you become more and more motivated. Because you start to feel like you can actually do this and you can keep going to achieve your goal. And now you are also walking your talk which boosts your motivation.
On some days you may not seem to be able motivate yourself into action. Even if you review your goals or reasons to achieve something.
That’s ok. You can still make a conscious choice based on what you know deep down is right and just start moving your hands and feet anyway. No matter how you feel inside, no matter what negative thoughts may be circling around in your head.
Try both to get yourself motivated before you begin and to just do it and find the motivation along the way. Try both ways and see what works best for you.
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“Move out of your comfort zone. You can only grow if you are willing to feel awkward and uncomfortable when you try something new.” Brian Tracy
I believe that one of the biggest reasons why people get stuck in reading and discussing things instead of taking action to change their lives for the better is simply that it is uncomfortable.
But to make real changes in your life you have to step outside your comfort zone. At least for a little while. And regularly.
In this article I’ll share three habits that have helped me to make it easier to step out the comfort zone.
Develop a habit of mixing things up.
This is an easy and simple way to expand your comfort zone and to keep your curiousness up.
Try new music. I mix things up by trying new music every month. I have a look at the best music on sites like Pitchfork and Metacritic. Then I load a few of those albums on Spotify and listen.
Try new food. Each week we try cooking a new recipe from our cook books. It is most often a tasty experiment and helps us to find, sometimes unexpected, new favorites.
Such small habits allow you to keep from getting stuck in the same old rut. It allows you to discover a ton of new exciting things. And it’s just plain fun.
And by changing your perception of yourself from someone who sticks to the old and comfortable all the time to someone who likes to mix small and big things up it feels more natural to mix things up in any other area of life too. You break out of your comfort zone regularly and so the inner resistance and fear that things will not go well becomes a lot smaller in everyday life.
Develop a habit of doing something in small steps.
What holds us back in our zone of comfort is often a fear that facing that fear head on all at once might be overwhelming. Taking small steps is a solution to that problem. It allows you to stretch your comfort zone and slowly making it less uncomfortable and frightening.
Become more social. Let’s say you want to be less nervous and awkward in social situations. To solve that you can take small steps. Steps like first just saying hi to people. And being more involved in conversations at work or in school to exercise your conversation muscles. After a while those things will feel more comfortable. And so you can expand your comfort zone a little bit more.
Become more effective. You can start with just working 1 hour a day fully focused on your most important tasks in cone of silence (this means to shut out and shut off all distractions like the internet, the phone, the door to your office etc. as best you can). And then go back to your normal routine. The next week you can add an hour and work two fully focused hours a day. Step by step you build a more powerful habit that may feel uncomfortable at first.
Create something new. When I was going to start making my own products I was hesitant. I was just used to writing blog posts and putting together a whole book seemed like fun but was definitely outside of my comfort zone. So I took a small step and put together a smaller e-book at first that I give away for free to new newsletter subscribers.
By doing things this way you gradually desensitize yourself to social situations, to a new way of working or whatever you are uncomfortable with. You make it the new “normal” for you.
So, identify where you want to go or how you want to improve your life. Then make a plan with some smaller steps you can take to gradually lessen your discomfort.
Develop a habit of letting other people help you by keeping you accountable.
Being accountable to someone else is one of the most effective ways to push yourself out of comfort zones and stick with what you are doing until it becomes a new habit.
So find someone else who wants to improve in the same area as you. Or just someone who wants to improve something in his or her life and wants an accountability buddy. Then keep an eye on each other and support each other. Nudge each other in the right direction and let a bit of positive social pressure work in your favor.
If you cannot find an accountability buddy simply make the accountability public in some way. Post about your new goal or the habit you want to develop on Facebook, on your blog or tell family and friends. Or start a thread about your progress with getting into better shape on a fitness forum or on a forum related to what you want to achieve.
A few examples:
At the gym. If you have decided to start going to the gym it might be easier to actually get going and keeping going there every week – even after the initial enthusiasm have dissipated – if you have a gym-partner.
At the party. If you want to meet new people at a party then you and friend can nudge each other in the right direction. Keep each other’s mood up and go in with an open frame of mind and just have new conversations with people. Assuming rapport can be helpful if you want to do that.
When you want to lose weight. The diet is, in my experience, the most important thing and often the most difficult thing to not cheat too much on when you are losing weight. It becomes easier to stick with the program and not go off the rails when you have a weights loss partner – someone with similar goals – or someone you can be accountable to. Someone who nudges you back on track when you are having a bad day and want to devour a lot junk food. Someone who will tell you that it is not your weekly cheat day quite yet.
Start with one of these habits. Use that one habit as much as you can for 30 days or more until it really becomes a ingrained habit in your life.
[hana-code-insert name=’socialbuttons’ /]“When a resolute young fellow steps up to the great bully, the world, and takes him boldly by the beard, he is often surprised to find it comes off in his hand, and that it was only tied on to scare away the timid adventurers.” Ralph Waldo Emerson
What is holding you back from trying new things and improving your life in big or small ways in your daily life?
When you boil it down it is most often not about anything outside of you. Or that is at least not the biggest reason why you feel paralyzed. It’s the fear that gets to you.
It holds you back from trying something new for lunch, a new place for the evening out or a new hobby because you feel somewhat afraid that you’ll have a bad experience. So you stick to your usual routine.
It holds you back from asking someone for a date or number because you don’t want to risk being rejected or looking like a fool in front of people. So you don’t take the next step.
You stay where you are and new directions in your life remain unexplored.
This is of course very human. But fear doesn’t have to stop you from exploring life.
Now, let me share what I do to minimize my fear and to be able to move from feeling overwhelmed or paralyzed into taking action and moving forward.
1. What is the worst that could happen?
I like this very practical exercise as step number one.
So ask yourself this question. Really think about. Don’t just think about it for a few seconds. Sit down with a pen and piece of paper, your laptop or cellphone. Write it all out and think about what the realistic worst-case scenario would be.
Then write down a plan for how you can come back from such a scenario.
This step brings clarity, defuses fuzzy fears and helps you realize that you can most often bounce back pretty quickly even if the worst-case scenario somehow becomes reality.
If that only works to a degree move on to the next step…
2. Share your fear with someone.
By sharing your fear you can relieve inner pressure. By just keeping it on the inside it’s easy to build it up into this massive nightmare and extremely dangerous thing.
By sharing and by getting some input from a levelheaded friend or family member he or she can help you to alleviate the fear and inner pressure. And you can gain a much healthier perspective on things again.
If you don’t have someone to share it with or if that only works partly too then move on to…
3. Accept the fear.
It is a natural impulse to try to deny the fear when shows up in your life. Perhaps you try to not think about, you try to push it away. Or you tell yourself that you need to focus like a laser beam on the positive.
I have found that in many cases it is actually better to just accept that fear – or whatever is left of it after having worked through step #1 and #2 – is here right now (although it can be hard to sometimes convince your brain that this is a good option as it wants to deny or reject what is).
By accepting that you feel this way you stop feeding more energy into the fear and you stop making it strong. After a few minutes of fully taking in this uncomfortable feeling and accepting it then it starts to lose steam. It just seems to float away and you feel more open and relieved feelings bubbling up within.
4. Tap into curiosity and focus on the upsides.
By now, most of those fearful feelings are often pretty small and they tend come and go. You have processed much of that inner tension and resistance.
So you are now at a good point to start focusing on why you want to move towards what you have feared and to open your mind to what you can find out there.
Take out the pen and paper and ask yourself:
What is the opportunity in this situation?
What are the potential upsides I want and can have by taking these actions?
What are the potential upsides in one year if I start moving on this path? And in five years?
And how will life be in five years if I continue on the path I am now?
The answer when it comes to what you eat for lunch or if you want to have a new hobby may simply be that life becomes more fun, healthy, fulfilling and filled with newness and more surprises.
The answer when it comes to taking action to make a date happen, to get a new job or to take another direction in college could be that your life changes completely.
5. Take a small step forward. Take it slowly if you like.
You don’t have to go all in at once in many cases. Think about how you can move in small steps and slowly towards what you want. Just dip your toes in at first if that feels more comfortable. The most important thing is that you start moving and that you take action, not how fast or how much action you take at first.
If you for example want to start your own business work on that in the evening while still working at your day job or staying in school. Don’t let thinking like “I have to go all in and take huge risks” hold you back.
Or if you want to try something new today just tell yourself that:
Just for today I will try [insert something you want to try]!
You just have to do it today. Not ever again after today. You are not signing up for some huge commitment.
Tomorrow you may continue on that new path. Or you may not.
By not making this into a huge thing you have do but instead just a small step, that you can take and get done as slowly as you like, it becomes so much easier to do what is most important at first: to put yourself in motion.
Then, along the way, you can take bigger leaps if you like and speed things up. You will learn through successes and failures (and realize that you won’t die if things don’t go your way all the time). You will quit some things and continue doing other things.
But first, make it easy on yourself to take the first step.
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[hana-code-insert name=’socialbuttons’ /]“If you ask what is the single most important key to longevity, I would have to say it is avoiding worry, stress and tension. And if you didn’t ask me, I’d still have to say it.” George F. Burns
“Self-pity is easily the most destructive of the nonpharmaceutical narcotics; it is addictive, gives momentary pleasure and separates the victim from reality.” John W. Gardner
Lately I have been very busy with working hard on the final part of my new course, Simplicity.
When you are busy like that at school or at work or just in life in general it’s very easy to from time to time fall into a couple of negative headspaces – such as victim thinking, feeling overwhelmed or just plain pessimistic – that make life and work more difficult.
In this post I’ll share how I usually to get myself out of such destructive inner places.
1. Releasing the stress.
Working out – I use free weight + body weight exercises – is my number one way to release stress and inner tension. If feel whiny or pessimistic then I put in maybe just 25 minutes of free weights as soon as I can (I have them at home so that makes is easier to get going with it).
That one step will most often work to feel stronger and better emotionally once again.
If that only works a bit I move one to…
2. Shift to a healthier perspective.
I usually do this one as the second step. But sometimes I use it as the first step and then I move on to or skip the exercise.
If I’m hung up on a smaller or medium sized detail or feel overwhelmed by something then I ask myself a question like:
Will this matter 5 years from now? This usually let’s me see that it doesn’t. Or that it is a very small deal in the long run.
If I fall into victim thinking I ask myself:
Does someone have it worse on the planet? Of course. So I should probably just chill out and snap out of the somewhat ridiculous, childish “poor, poor me” thoughts.
If I get irritated or angry at someone else then I ask myself:
How would I think and feel it if I were in his or her shoes? Putting myself in the other person’s shoes helps me to gain a more levelheaded mood and better perspective to solve a situation practically or to let it go. Instead of building a molehill into Mount Everest in my head.
If that doesn’t bring me fully around I move one to…
3. Focusing fully on rest.
I take a time out. I watch some fun comedies like the Simposons, the Office or Community and just laugh some time away. Or I lie down on the couch to read some fun or thrilling mystery novel.
And I do nothing more for maybe a half a hour or an hour. This is very important. I basically single-task and just focus on such relaxing – and for me fully absorbing – activities to 100%. This usually works wonders and lets me get back into the work with a relaxed and optimistic mindset again.
So find the activities that you get fully absorbed in – some sport, a walk, swimming perhaps or playing a video game – and take a fully focused break when needed.
Bonus tip: I remember to keep things extremely simple.
This one works when I get overwhelmed for example but is also one of my best tools to keep out of negative headspaces in the first place by focusing on what is helpful and nipping destructive thoughts patterns in the bud.
At the very top of a whiteboard on my wall I have written down: “Keep things extremely simple” (I also have this phrase as a desktop wallpaper on my laptop).
And whenever I feel I am making a thing bigger or more complicated than it is or I simply become confused or negative in some way I can look at the wall to help guide my thoughts back into a constructive and calm place.
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“Simplicity is the ultimate sophistication.” Leonardo da Vinci
“Our life is frittered away by detail… Simplify, simplify.” Henry Thoreau
One of the most important things I have done to improve my life over the last few years is to focus on letting go of many things and to simplify.
Simplifying one’s life is as I have understood via emails and surveys also one of the most common aspirations of readers of this website. So for the past few months I have been working hard on a course called Simplicity.
This is by far my most in-depth product so far and will help you to practically simplify and improve the most important areas in life such as your productivity & effectiveness, your thinking, your social skills & relationships, your health, your money habits and more. Be on the lookout for more information about this in the next few days.
But for today I would like to share a couple of great ideas about simplifying that have been with us for a long time. These are a few of my own favorite thoughts about simplifying your life from the last 2500 years or so.
Focus on what is most important for you. Let go of the rest.
“The ability to simplify means to eliminate the unnecessary so that the necessary may speak.” Hans Hofmann
“Besides the noble art of getting things done, there is the noble art of leaving things undone. The wisdom of life consists in the elimination of non-essentials.” Lin Yutang
“The sculptor produces the beautiful statue by chipping away such parts of the marble block as are not needed – it is a process of elimination.” Elbert Hubbard
There are many things you can let go of. Both on the inside and the outside. I have for example let go of some busy work on the outside. I have greatly decreased the number of times I check email etc. each day and I have learned to use very short to-do lists with only 2-3 of the most important items instead of a dozen items or more.
On the inside I do my best to let go of trivial and petty stuff. I let go of negative stuff. I let go of trying to control the results of my actions. I let go of information and old self-images that don’t serve me anymore. I always remember – or remind myself via the white board on my wall – to keep things extremely simple.
I’ll mention a small and effective tip for letting go right here. First accept that you are for example stuck in focusing on something trivial. Then let it go. Don’t try to just reject what you are thinking or feeling because that will only make it harder to let it go.
By doing all this elimination on the inside and outside there is more room, time and energy for me to use for the most important things. And that makes life so much more interesting and fun.
Express yourself in a simple way.
“My aim is to put down on paper what I see and what I feel in the best and simplest way.” Ernest Hemingway
One of the trickier things about social skills is to get your message across. One reason why people have difficulty with this is because they use more words than needed.
Now, sometimes that can be a good and enjoyable thing. Sometimes it’s just a way to feed your own ego and keep the spotlight on yourself for as long as possible. A lot of the time I think it can be useful to simplify and try to use fewer words.
Why? Well, it makes your message clearer and makes it more powerful emotionally because it’s focused. Keeping it shorter and more focused also makes it less likely that people will simply become bored with what you are saying.
So, how do you keep your word count down?
Be aware and alert. Just being aware of your problem can help you to stop the talking before it becomes excessive rambling.
Focus outward. Babbling on too much is also, at least in my opinion, something that often comes from being too focused inward and on yourself in a conversation. If you instead focus more outward you’ll be less self-conscious. This reduces nervous and slightly nonsensical babbling. And if you focus more outward, on the people you are talking to and less on your own glorious voice and golden words you’ll be more aware of what you are saying and how the conversation is going. If you focus on the other people you’ll be more focused on getting through and more attentive to the reactions you bring out.
A simpler life is one way to a happier life.
“Reduce the complexity of life by eliminating the needless wants of life, and the labors of life reduce themselves.” Edwin Way Teale
Society is to a large degree built on getting more.
To a degree this can be useful. But it may not be the thing that will solve all your problems.
You may not find your answer or happiness in more. It may just alter your troubles and problems. And/or give you more of them. What is already there inside of you perhaps gets highlighted and magnified when you get more. Instead of getting whatever you want when finally making all that money your wanted you may find that greed, jealousy and selfishness within you and in your world increases.
You may have thought that when you finally arrived at that place your problems would just disappear. But the ego wants more and is never satisfied.
So trying to fill your life and yourself up with more – money, stuff, power, smartness, prettiness, a feeling of being more enlightened than others – and then finally becoming happy may become like trying to fill a bucket with a hole in the bottom.
By simplifying and letting of a craving for more you can make your life happier and easier.
Get a life to create a simpler life.
“Life is really simple, but we insist on making it complicated.” Confucius
“Simplicity is an acquired taste. Mankind, left free, instinctively complicates life.” Katherine F. Gerould
Why do people make life more complicated than it is? Well, one answer may be old habits that you need to let go of and replace.
Another answer is that your life isn’t really that exciting. So you add drama and complications to make it more interesting and stimulating. That’s at least what I used to do in the past.
But instead of doing that you can take the more difficult path and actually get a life.
If you find yourself sitting around too much and not having enough to do then it’s very easy to get stuck in thought loops and go into a downward spiral. Simply by filling your life with more fun activities and people you become a lot more relaxed and have little time or patience for complications or drama from yourself or others.
So spend less time analyzing life and more time living and exploring it in whatever way you’d like. By doing so you are also often confronted with having to expand your comfort zones and perhaps face a fear. This leads to better self confidence and less fretting about if you can handle things that may come up.
“Die when I may, I want it said by those who knew me best that I always plucked a thistle and planted a flower where I thought a flower would grow.”
“I am not bound to win, but I am bound to be true. I am not bound to succeed, but I am bound to live by the light that I have. I must stand with anybody that stands right, and stand with him while he is right, and part with him when he goes wrong.”
“With the fearful strain that is on me night and day, if I did not laugh I should die.”
Even if you are not an American – like me – you’ve probably still heard of Abraham Lincoln. He was the president who introduced and worked on measures to free the slaves and led the country through the Civil War. A war that had just ended when Lincoln was assassinated by John Wilkes Booth in Ford’s Theatre.
But what can Abraham Lincoln help us with today? Well, here are 10 powerful and timeless fundamentals. I hope you’ll find something helpful.
1. See the positive in people.
“If you look for the bad in people expecting to find it, you surely will.”
“The way for a young man to rise is to improve himself in every way he can, never suspecting that anybody wishes to hinder him.”
What you focus on you will find. In a situation, in a person. There is always plenty of good things and plenty of bad things to discover.
So you need to keep your focus steadily on what you want to find. Don’t let it waver just because you are in a “negative” situation or someone just said/did something “negative”. If your focus gets scattered, try to get it back into a more useful place as quickly as you can.
You can develop whatever view of the world and people that you like. You can go looking for the negative in people and feel a short burst of good emotions as find something negative about a person and feel like you are “right”.
Or you can develop a habit of looking for the positive. A habit where you can expect people to treat you in a positive way.
Because we do to a large extent teach people how we want to be treated. If we expect other people to help us and treat us well then they are more likely to do so than if we are negative and expect to be treated poorly.
This may sound a bit weird, but how we expect to be treated can have a big effect on how the world sees us.
2. Be honest.
“No man has a good enough memory to be a successful liar.”
This is a pretty practical thing. Being honest will for several reasons work better in the long run. Of course, you don’t have to go out of your way to be honest and hurt people though. You can just as well choose to be silent if you like. Here are just a few practical reasons to minimize or just stop lying altogether.
Your words aren’t everything. Words are only a pretty small part of communication. The rest are body language and your voice tonality. And it’s through those channels that the real you will shine through. People will in some way sense that something is wrong, that you aren’t being honest and authentic if those other ways you communicate aren’t in alignment with your words. So lying is just a short term solution. Sooner or later people will pick up on it.
Poor self-image and stress. Cultivating a self-image as someone who lies will make you feel worse about yourself. You’ll feel like a fake and your self-esteem plummets. And if you on the other hand are honest you don’t have to feel like someone that is trapped or on the high-wire all the time.
People really appreciate authentic communication. What separates people is to a large extent the walls that they build up between themselves. When you put aside personas and lies you can build real connections between you and other people. If you remove these walls of insulation then the people or you are interacting with are likely to reciprocate. And so your relationships can improve and are less likely to be damaged by miscommunication.
3. Unite.
“A house divided against itself cannot stand.”
Ego excludes and divides. The ego loves to make someone “the other” to strengthen its own power. It want’s to feel “more” than someone else. More clever. Prettier. Cooler. Wiser. Or more like a victim.
And by making the other even more wrong in your mind the ego grows stronger. However, the ego boosts of good feelings are just temporary. You have to reinforce them continually, just like a caffeine habit.
Consciousness and intelligence includes and accepts. You don’t have to be seduced by your ego’s wish to make people other than you. You can look at the positive in them and at the things you agree about. And be accepting.
When your thoughts are buzzing around in your head and telling you to exclude or divide in some way then you most often are listening to your ego. It may tell you that paragraphs just above this one are cheesy and stupid. You may not want to take such thoughts too seriously. You don’t have to.
The most useful advice I’ve found so far to get a handle on the need to divide is to not identify so much with my thoughts or feelings. That doesn’t mean that I stop thinking or feeling. It just means that I realize – and remember in my everyday life – that the thoughts and emotions are just things flowing through me. And that I am the consciousness observing them.
When you realize and remember this it enables you to control the thoughts and feelings instead of the other way around. It enables you to not take your thoughts too seriously and actually laugh at them or ignore them when you feel that your ego is acting out.
When you are not being so identified these things you become more inclined to include things, thoughts and people instead of excluding them. This creates a lot of inner and outer freedom and stillness. Instead of fear, a need to divide your world and a search for conflicts.
4. Create a friend where there is none.
“The best way to destroy an enemy is to make him a friend.”
“I don’t like that man. I must get to know him better.”
This is similar to tip #1 and # 3. But slightly different, seen from a slightly different perspective. It is a helpful and a bit unusual way of looking at people who you might perceive as different or other than yourself.
Turning an enemy or someone we don’t like into a friend is difficult because first impressions can be powerful. Our concept of a person can remain intact if we don’t push further and question and explore. But if you get to know someone better you can often find out quite a few positive and interesting things about them. People are often more intriguing than your first impression of them.
Of course, since the ego needs to tell you that you are right and someone else is wrong then it can be hard to change your opinion of someone. That opinion of him/her is tied up in your ego and fuels your sense of being “right”. Again, the key and the way out here is to not take your thoughts or emotions too seriously.
This can allow you to open your mind to a change in the relationship.
Now, how can you make him/her your friend? One suggestion would be to follow tip # 1 and start looking for the positive in the person. Then to take the first step and give some kind of value – like help for instance – to that person. And then to take more steps if s/he is not convinced that you want to change the relationship.
5. Believe in and go after your own success.
“Always bear in mind that your own resolution to succeed is more important than any one thing.”
“Things may come to those who wait, but only the things left by those who hustle.”
If you think you can succeed then you can. Your belief in your own ability to succeed is essential and does not only motivate you to keep going.
You may have heard that you have to believe that you can achieve something to do it and that the how you will do it will then present itself along the way. Well, that is true in my experience. Whatever you focus on persistently you will find in your world. So be careful what you focus on. Remind yourself to keep your focus on what you want to make solutions and people who can help you “pop up” out of all those things and pieces of information that is the background noise of your world.
And don’t wait for too long. Procrastination may just leave you with the crumbs or sometimes nothing really. Taking action is awesome. But taking action with little delay will increase the probability of you actually getting what you want before the window of opportunity closes.
So develop a Just do it! habit. Learn to do some planning but then to take action quickly despite what excuses or other negative things your thoughts and emotions may put up in your way. Know that they may just want to protect you from uncertainty and risks. But also know that you are in charge of them and not the other way around.
6. Persist.
“Hold on with a bulldog grip, and chew and choke as much as possible.”
Persistence might not exactly be the sexiest sounding quality. It might not sell a lot of products to people looking for the magic pill. But it is an immensely helpful quality to cultivate and put to use.
If you fail, what do you do? You dust yourself off and try again. If the success you are looking for won’t come that quickly – a pretty likely scenario – then you have to persist. Persistence may be one of the most useful qualities one can have. Not only because you will still be out there in a less competitive playing field as lot other people have given up and gone home. But also because developing patience and being persistent will enable you to get what you want. It may just take a little longer than had hoped for.
7. Sharpen your ax.
“If I had eight hours to chop down a tree, I’d spend six hours sharpening my ax.”
Instead of just starting to chop with a blunt blade for hours on end it’s a whole lot smarter to first sharpen the blade and then take on the physically harder task of bringing the tree down. This goes for everything.
If you are prepared then it will often be a whole lot easier to get something done. Sometimes it can be the thing that separates people that either keeps chopping until they can’t take it anymore and give up and the people who could get the job done.
So success is not just about doing hard work. It’s also about sharpening your ax at regular intervals and learning new and better ways to take down the trees in your life. And it’s about remembering what trees you want to take down rather than just any tree. However, you don’t want to get stuck in this stage and never take action. As with all things, you have to find a balance by experimenting.
Four suggestions for sharpening your ax are:
Educate yourself. Do some research into the whatever you want to achieve. Look for the most common mistakes and smart things people do. Read books and online. Talk to people who have already been where you want to go.
Do. Fail. Learn. Do. Knowledge from external sources is great. But to really understand you have to do things. And learn from your own failures and successes. And then do again with your new understanding in your mind.
Manage your energy levels. You don’t just have increase your knowledge and understanding of things. You also have to have the physical energy to get things done when you find your opportunity. Otherwise you may just fall into a procrastinating pattern or back down. So workout. Eat enough. Sleep enough. Basic stuff of course. But if you do it consistently then you’ll increase you chances of succeeding when it’s time to start chopping down your trees. With a high energy level it will be easier to persist until you are done.
Remind yourself where you are going. A lot of not so important busy work can dull your ax. You need to regularly review your plans and remind yourself of your goals and what you really want. If you don’t keep your eyes on where you want to go you might wind up somewhere completely different.
8. Take a responsibility for your own life.
“You have to do your own growing no matter how tall your grandfather was.”
“You cannot help men permanently by doing for them what they could and should do for themselves.”
When we are kids people take care of us. They take responsibility. But to become an adult – and not just a kid in a grown up’s body – one has to take responsibility for oneself. There is no other way. Sure, letting someone else take the responsibility may be easier on you.
But without taking responsibility for yourself how can you be free?
How can you really live up you own potential and dreams?
It can be hard to break out of the comfort zone of having other people taking responsibility for us. But if you don’t then you will be trapped by other people’s standards, expectations and limitations. You have to set your own rules for your life. A bit scary. But also liberating.
9. Happiness is optional.
“Most folks are about as happy as they make their minds up to be.
One big upside of taking responsibility for yourself is that it lets you decide where the standards and limits are set. When you take responsibility for what you do you will also feel that you deserve to do what you feel is right for you, in your life.
And our control and responsibility not only goes for what you do out in the world. But also for your thoughts and emotions. You are to a large extent in charge here too.
When you realise this then you realise that you don’t have to play along with your old patterns of thinking and feeling anymore. You don’t have to play along with is “normal” or common thinking. You don’t have to take your thoughts so seriously. You can choose to not feel insulted when someone says something. You can choose to not to be angry whilst stuck in traffic. You can choose to see the positive in people. And you can choose how happy you will be.
Pain is inevitable in life. But how you choose to process or think about things – and if you let them get stuck in your mind or not – is up to you. Suffering is therefore to a large extent optional. And so is happiness.
10. Live your life fully.
“In the end, it’s not the years in your life that count. It’s the life in your years.”
This one is just beautiful. And I don’t really have much to add. But it might be useful to remind yourself of this saying regularly. Maybe when you feel like you are veering off track. Or when heading into things like small-mindedness, laziness or complacency. Perhaps you want to write it down and put it in a highly visible place so you don’t forget about it.
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